heaven; the glory of the world is surely over, and the earth in ashes unto them. To subsist in lasting monuments, to live in their productions, to exist in their names and predicament of chimeras, was large satisfaction unto old expectations, and made one part of their Elysiums. But all this is nothing in the metaphysicks of true belief. To live indeed, is to be again ourselves, which being not only an hope, but an evidence in noble believers, 'tis all one to lie in St. Innocent's* churchyard, as in the sands of Egypt. Ready to be anything, in the ecstasy of being ever, and as content with six foot as the moles of Adrianus.t tabésne cadavera solvat, An rogus, haud refert.-LUCAN. * In Paris, where bodies soon consume. † A stately mausoleum or sepulchral pile, built by Adrianus in Rome, where now standeth the castle of St. Angelo. BRAMPTON URNS. PARTICULARS OF SOME URNS FOUND IN BRAMPTON FIELD, FEBRUARY 1667-8. THIRD EDITION. CORRECTED FROM THREE MS. COPIES IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM AND ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 1712. A 1 "A Roman Urn drawn with a coal taken out of it, and found among the burnt bones, and is now in the possession of Dr. Hans Sloane, to whom this plate is most humbly inscribed."-FIRST EDITION. BRAMPTON URNS. I THOUGHT I had taken leave of urns, when I had some years past given a short account of those found at Walsingham; but a new discovery being made, I readily obey your commands in a brief description thereof. In a large arable field, lying between Buxton and Brampton, but belonging to Brampton, and not much more than a furlong from Oxnead-park, divers urns were found. A part of the field being designed to be inclosed, the workmen digged a ditch from north to south, and another from east to west, in both which they fell upon divers urns; but earnestly and carelessly digging, they broke all they met with, and finding nothing but ashes and burnt bones, they scattered what they found. Upon notice given unto me, I went myself to observe the same, and to have obtained a whole one; and though I met with two in the side of the ditch, and used all care I could with the workmen, yet they were broken. Some advantage there was from the wet season alone that day, the earth not readily falling from about them, as in the summer. When some were digging the north and south ditch, and others at a good distance the east and west one, those at this latter upon every stroke which was made at the other ditch, heard a hollow sound near to them, as though the ground had been arched, raulted, or hollow, about them. It is very probable there are very many urns about this place, for they were found in both ditches, which were one hundred yards from each other; and this very sounding of the earth, which might be *See Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial: or, a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk. 8vo. London, printed 1658. |